Tag Archives: arts

When I look at all the patterns I have made so far, I am quite proud of each and every one of them. Look at them, so many (and I even forgot a few), that is about three years of designing in that picture!

But lately I’ve been so critical about my designs that I am having a hard time finishing them. This must be something every designer goes through every once and a while. Maybe it is just the soggy weather and the grey of winter that makes me judge my work differently.

It started when I was working on my tortoise pattern. I made this gorgeous looking shell, that would be a bit difficult to assemble. And because I couldn’t write it down perfectly scientifically, I had to re-think it so I fooled around with it for a while and did not enjoy it. Then I saw this picture of a gorgeous looking American red squirrel and decided I was going to set aside the tortoise and make a new squirrel that made me all excited. I started all enthusiastic but soon afterwards doubted every part I made. I guess designing the realistic animals got me into this phase. Because now, when I’m designing a doll, I’m not sure anymore how realistic it should look. These crochet animals must look like the real animal for sure, but they also should be a bit more whimsical and playful looking, well you’ve just seen my Popkes. When I look at my sweet little squirrel face, I’m thinking ‘isn’t this looking too complicated?’ or ‘isn’t this head too small, should I make a more round and basic head?’. It’s annoying, I’m doubting my every move, while I can clearly see what I came up with isn’t looking bad at all.

The best thing to do is to just keep working on it. Today I made a very smart looking tail, which doesn’t need pipe cleaners in it to make it look bended. And the body I made has a very formidable looking light belly, so I suppose I am just being a bit too hard on myself. I will just continue working on this sweetie and assemble a prototype. When that is finished I can decide if I find this squirrel whimsical and characteristic enough and if anything needs to be changed.

Hi crafty folks, I just wanted to give you and update on the progress of the badger. Here is a little teaser image for you.

I have a first badger finished and it is already sitting on my bedside table. Now you probably are thinking ‘what am I supposed to do with that info?’ Well, when a doll is finished, I always bring it with me to the bedroom, because I want to have it close to me. You know, like when you were a kid and put your new shoes next to your bed. Or was that only me?

Anyway, now you probably will understand I love this badger plushy to bits. It wasn’t easy to create this more realistic shaped pattern and I got stuck many times. I will tell all about that when I publish the pattern. What I can say now is that this crochet badger means a lot to me. Badgers are me favourite animals and after seeing one in the wild this summer it is very special to now have a homemade miniature badger next to my bed. I think this badger radiates my love for the animal and will make a very special pattern for all animal and badger lovers out there.

And one more thing. This crochet badger is brushed and to be sure all the proportions are good before I could do the promo and pattern photoshoot, I had to finish a first badger. I also want pictures in the pattern of how you assemble the animal, so I needed an unfinished doll for that purpose. I am happy to say everything turned out good so that means I will have two almost identical badgers. Maybe I will sell one off them. I have to think about that.

Isn’t he a doll!? Designing this pattern was such a joy. For starters, I haven’t always been a sloth lover as I mentioned earlier but researching this animal made me love it so much. What a very special creature indeed. Now I totally understand why so many people love this animal to bits. Sloths have the most cheerful and loving faces and an always smiling mouth.

That mouth and how it in fact shapes the face, has been the base of my design. The most important thing was to create a face around that smiling mouth. For this reason I decided to tilt the head and make what is normally the top of the head, the front of it. This results in a different layout of the face. When you normally see the lines of the rounds go vertical, now you see the circles. I used the shape of a crocheted ball in my advantage to create a smiley face and to get very smooth colour changes. Sloths have a light round patch in the middle of their head that forms their face. I could have used a big sewn-on patch to create that look, but I knew I could get the same result and even better, with the tilted head and by using the shape of the rounds to create a perfect coloured circle. Even the dark eye patches sloths have, look very neat with this technique. And the best thing is, there’s practically no sewing to do. You only need to sew on a nose and mouth, but that’s it!

Another special thing about sloths is their huge claws. The claws is something I missed when I looked at other crochet sloths online and I understand why they aren’t there. Big claws do not look very cute on a plushy. Being a bit of a perfectionist, I strongly felt my crochet sloth did need to have claws, but they had to be cute claws. So, I made a bunch of claws, some big, some even bigger and darker and finally managed to get a very visible claw that looked very cuddly because it almost automatically folds around the edge of the paw. What about that! Just what I was looking for.

I think Misu is beyond doubt the cutest crochet animal I have ever made. It must be that smile. My sloth amigurumi is not a perfectly realistic shaped animal but doll shaped, for the sloth there doesn’t seem to be much difference. Especially when you look at the profile picture of Misu below, even in doll shape he looks so sloth-like. It is unmistakable, really cool if I might say. I chose to not brush the surface of this crochet sloth, but I think that will look awesome as well, makes him even look more fuzzy, like a real sloth.

Here are some more pictures of my mischievous looking crochet sloth and below them you can find all the info you need and links to buy the pattern.

Info about & links to buy the pattern

Misu is made with Istex Lett Lopi, a 100% wool with a lot of fuzziness, which suits the sloth fur very well. He is sitting 5.2 inch/ 13 cm tall.

The crochet sloth pattern contains a clear and colour coded description of how to crochet and assemble it, with extra illustrations and example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can also find what materials you need, the yarn colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make your own relaxed friend. All the additional information you need to know about this pattern you can find in the shop listings. You can buy this pattern in my shop at Craftsy and in my shop at Ravelry or order it here.

This pattern has a one dollar release discount till Halloween Tuesday!

And here he is, a very spotted feline, meet Choof the crochet cheetah.

This was such a fun pattern to create. The basic shapes of this cheetah amigurumi were already known to me. The shape of the head many of my big cats have, did not need much changes and the limbs and body only needed to be a bit slimmer than that of the other cats. You clearly see the difference in shape between the big cats is you put them in a line. But of course the spots make the most difference. Because I knew from the start how many stitches wide I was going to make each body part, I could totally focus on getting the ideal pattern for the spots.

As I always do, I started with the head. The hardest part of designing the cheetah’s face were those distinctive dark lines around the muzzle. As you all are familiar with, crocheting in a spiral does not always create smooth vertical lines when you crochet in multiple colours. On one side of the muzzle I got a very neat dark line, but on the other side I got this rugged line that did not run smoothly around the muzzle at all. I had to try many options before I found a neat combination of stitches to get the right look. I am very pleased with the end result, even though the stitches aren’t all lined up, the stripe runs smoothly around the muzzle and looks realistic.

For the spots of the body I tried a combination of bigger and larger spots, but soon noticed the spots all needed to have the same size. I also figured out pretty soon the spots needed to be placed randomly, not on every other stitch on every other round. So I just worked one round at the time and placed the spots delicately.

And in all it simplicity, it works so well. Those random spots give this crochet cheetah the perfect cheetah coat and are so easy to make. And the tail, how could I forget about that, I love this tail. I made it exactly like a real cheetah’s tail, white end, striped and then dotted, just look at it! Below the images you can find info about and links to buy the crochet cheetah pattern.

Info about & links to buy the pattern

Choof is made with Istex Lett Lopi, a 100% wool with a lot of fuzziness. He is sitting 5,5 inch/ 14 cm tall.

This cheetah crochet pattern contains a clear and colour coded description of how to crochet and assemble it, with extra illustrations and example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can also find what materials you need, the yarn colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make your own spotted feline. All the additional information you need to know about this pattern you can find in the shop listings. You can buy this pattern in my shop at Craftsy and in my shop at Ravelry or order it here.

This pattern has a one dollar release discount till Thursday the 12th!

What will it be? I’ve been a bit lazy with my updates here. Since I use Instagram I regularly post pictures there of the things I am working on and it kinda slips my mind to also write about it at my blog. Nowadays I use this place to publish the patterns. Hope you don’t mind. If you like to see the WIP’s, just check my Instagram account.

But now I am here, I can tell you all about what I am making at the moment. A big, slender spotted cat, yes a cheetah pattern. It’s almost finished and my dear editor is testing the pattern as we speak.

I never made a cheetah because of its spottiness, but they are one of my favourite big cats. Especially juvenile cheetahs with their silly wild fur are too ridiculously cute to be real. I love the expressive face of cheetahs too and was a little bit worried if I could manage to get that right. But I think I did. What do you think?

You just have to wait till the end of the week to find the pattern here. Enjoy it in all its Autumnal fury!

There are several free patterns to find at my blog, but Mr. Creeper is my favourite and he deserves some extra attention. If you feel linke making something creepy but cute, try this pattern, it is fun. The legs acquire some patience to crochet but this amigurumi is so worth the effort because let’s face it, Mr. Creeper is one cute spider. You can find the free pattern below the image, go for it!

For this pattern you’ll need worsted weight yarn and hook US E/3.5 mm. to get an approximately 6 inch / 15 cm tall spider, measured from front to back paw. I’ve used the darkest brown colour of Lètt Lopi, a 100% wool. You will also need fiberfill, animal eyes, I used 7 mm eyes. Safety eyes with big backs won’t fit in the head so make sure you are going to use eyes that do fit. You also need pipe cleaners for the legs, so you can bend them into shape.

Body

1. magic ring of 6

2. 2 sc in each around = 12

3. (sc in next, 2 sc in next) x 6 = 18

4. (sc in next 2, 2 sc in next) x 6 = 24

5. 2 sc in next 2, sc in next 10, 2 sc in next 2, sc in next 10 = 28

6-7. sc in each around = 28

8. s2tog, sc in next 10, s2tog x 2, sc in next 10, s2tog = 24

9. (sc in next 2, s2tog) x 6 = 18

10. (sc in next, s2tog) x 6 = 12

11. s2tog x 6 = 6

Now close the gap by inserting the needle from the inside out, trough all the outside loops of the 6 st clockwise. If you do it correctly, you can pull the tail and it will close the gap. Sew in the end.

Head

1. magic ring of 5

2. 2 sc in each around = 10

3-4. sc in each around = 10

Leave yarn end for sewing.

Legs (make 8)

1. magic ring of 4

2-11. sc in each around = 4

Leave yarn ends for sewing. You can now insert the pipe cleaners. Stretch the paws so they get the desired length and leave the tip of the pipe cleaner sticking out, so you can later push it into the body.

Jaws

ch of 2, in 2nd ch from hook sl st. (leave both tails long enough for sewing)

Assembling the spider.

Finish the spiders face by attaching the eyes and sew on the jaws. I sewed Mr. Creepers jaws tight by sewing both ends to the head. Now you can attach the head to the body. After this I attached the paws neatly opposite to each other, by inserting the ends of the pipe cleaners first. If they are in the right spots, sew them tight.

Finally I had the time to publish my latest pattern. Meet Martouf, an orange tabby crochet cat!

When designing this pattern, I tried to make a simple and striking, but also very versatile crochet cat. Martouf has become an orange and white tabby cat. I also thought of making him a brownish tabby or a black & white cat, there were so many options! Cats are one of my favourite pets and I love their diversity in looks. It was hard to choose which kind to make. And making my own cat, a mad black one, was not an option because that would make this pattern a bit too basic. The cat had to be multi coloured.

And that diversity in looks presented another lovely challenge too. What if I could create a pattern that makes all sort of cats?

So, with that in mind I started designing and for every body part of the cat, I looked if there were easy colour changes to add to the pattern, so one could make a different looking cat.

This cat pattern has become so versatile, most types of cats can be made with it. For instance, in the part for the head, you can find an extra instruction of how to create a white line between the eyes. And the part for the body offers a second instruction to make a complete white belly. In the pattern you can find several of these instructions that can help you make your own cat.

Here are some more pictures of Martouf and below it you can find info about and links to buy this crochet cat pattern.

Info about & links to buy the pattern

This very versatile cat is made with Istex Lett Lopi, a worsted weight wool. It is 14 cm / 5.5 inch when sitting. The pattern is easy to crochet and offers many suggestions and instructions to create a different looking cat.

All the additional information you need to know about this pattern you can find in the shop listings. You can buy this pattern in my shop at Craftsy and in my shop at Ravelry or order it here. It contains a clear and colour coded description of how to crochet and assemble the cat, with example pictures at the bottom to help you get everything right. In the pattern you can also find what materials you need, the yarn colour numbers, in short, everything you need to know to make your own playful friend.

This pattern has a one dollar release discount till Tuesday the 11th of April.